The inside dirt / Stanford Stadium remodel gets down to earth

Dave Murphy, Chronicle Staff Writer

Published
4:00 am PST, Saturday, December 3, 2005

STADIUM_084_CAG.JPG
A hydrolic excavator demolishes portions of the upper seats at Stanford Stadium in Palo Alto, Ca., on Monday November 28, 2005. Monday is the first day of demolishing Stanford Stadium, built 84 years ago. Just looking for some good demolition shots. Anything nostalgic would be an added bonus. They're going to be rebuilding it quickly, hoping it's done for the 2006 football season.
Photo by Carlos Avila Gonzalez / The San Francisco Chronicle
Photo taken on 11/28/05 in Palo Alto, CA. MANDATORY CREDIT FOR PHOTOG AND SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE/ -MAGS OUT less

STADIUM_084_CAG.JPG
A hydrolic excavator demolishes portions of the upper seats at Stanford Stadium in Palo Alto, Ca., on Monday November 28, 2005. Monday is the first day of demolishing Stanford Stadium, ... more

Photo: Carlos Avila Gonzalez

Photo: Carlos Avila Gonzalez

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STADIUM_084_CAG.JPG
A hydrolic excavator demolishes portions of the upper seats at Stanford Stadium in Palo Alto, Ca., on Monday November 28, 2005. Monday is the first day of demolishing Stanford Stadium, built 84 years ago. Just looking for some good demolition shots. Anything nostalgic would be an added bonus. They're going to be rebuilding it quickly, hoping it's done for the 2006 football season.
Photo by Carlos Avila Gonzalez / The San Francisco Chronicle
Photo taken on 11/28/05 in Palo Alto, CA. MANDATORY CREDIT FOR PHOTOG AND SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE/ -MAGS OUT less

STADIUM_084_CAG.JPG
A hydrolic excavator demolishes portions of the upper seats at Stanford Stadium in Palo Alto, Ca., on Monday November 28, 2005. Monday is the first day of demolishing Stanford Stadium, ... more

Photo: Carlos Avila Gonzalez

The inside dirt / Stanford Stadium remodel gets down to earth

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Forget about three yards and a cloud of dust. The first big play in rebuilding Stanford Stadium will involve 100,000 cubic yards of dirt.

The ground game will start in earnest after Dec. 10, when the two-week demolition of the 84-year-old stadium is scheduled to be finished. Even if shards of the old stadium are still around, the dirt will come.

"It'll be enough where we can get in and start making grade with our dirt," said construction project manager Tim Stitt of Vance Brown Builders in Palo Alto.

So begins a race to have the new stadium ready for the Sept. 9, 2006, home opener against San Jose State. And the game might be on real grass, not a synthetic surface as had been expected.

Moving, excavating and compacting the dirt will take about six weeks, Stitt said. About one-fourth of the dirt will come from around the stadium, with another 65,000 square yards coming from an excavation to make way for a physics building at Stanford, and the final 10,000 coming from land being cleared for a parking garage.

Preservationist Gail Woolley, a former Palo Alto mayor, said dirt was a big part of the original stadium's history and design. Three Stanford engineering professors, inspired by the architecture of amphitheaters in Pompeii, Italy, sunk the stadium into a berm of earth.

"They realized that if they designed the stadium by digging down and putting the dirt on the side, they wouldn't need much of a structure," Woolley said.

The stadium eventually had 85,500 seats, and was home to such historic events as Herbert Hoover's acceptance of the Republican presidential nomination in 1928, the 1985 Super Bowl and the 1994 World Cup. Its replacement will have about 35,000 fewer seats and more modern facilities, of course, but will incorporate much of that original spirit.

"The earthen berm that is there stays," said Jean McCown, Stanford's director of community relations. "They're going to build a smaller bowl inside that big bowl."

The smaller bowl will put fans closer to the game, as the stadium will no longer have a track or fencing between fans and the field. And it will be a complete oval, rather than having one portion of the berm missing, as the disappearing stadium did at its east end.

For now, though, a whole lot of scrunching and shredding is taking place.

As soon as Stanford football wrapped up its season last Saturday night -- with a narrow loss to Notre Dame that cost the Cardinal a bowl berth -- work began to get rid of the old stuff. A ceremonial first dig was held that night, then university workers spent much of Sunday removing any items that could be reused.

On Monday, the heavy duty demolition began. Crews are working double shifts -- 6:30 a.m. to 11 p.m. Mondays through Saturdays -- to get the work done, with the goal of opening the new stadium by early September.

Stitt said his company has performed many night jobs elsewhere in order to minimize daytime disruptions for workers and students, but it's rare to have the double shifts.

"Usually the time lines aren't this tight," he said.

Because the stadium is away from the center of campus and isolated from residential areas, the traffic and noise impacts from destruction and construction are expected to be minimal. The Palo Alto city government had no say about the project, but Mayor Jim Burch said he is glad to see the stadium being upgraded.

"Their sports facilities are second to none," he said. "I think they're going about it the right way."

Vance Brown Builders has handled many projects at Stanford -- sports and otherwise -- including the Arrillaga Family Sports Center, the Avery Aquatics Complex and the Taube Family Tennis Stadium.

By Wednesday afternoon, more than half the stands had been ripped out, and a huge yellow excavator was tearing out rows of seats at what used to be the 50-yard line, in front of the scheduled-for-demolition press box on the stadium's southwest side.

Trucks from subcontractor Ferma Corp. of Mountain View have already been hauling away tons of debris. Stitt said most of the trash will go to Zanker Road Landfill in San Jose, but much of the aluminum will be sold for recycling.

Almost everything left in the stadium will be wiped out by Dec. 10, said Dave Schinski, Stanford's assistant athletic director for capital planning. He said a relatively new press box elevator will remain in place, and the stadium lights and northwest scoreboard will be kept, but will likely be moved closer to the field once the smaller earthen bowl is built.

People can see progress live via Webcam at stanfordstadium.com, but it won't exactly be scintillating viewing for a few months after the demolition. After six weeks or so of making the earth move, Vance Brown Builders will spend the next couple of months putting in a mechanically stabilized embankment wall, precast concrete designed to hold the earth back.

"You really won't see it because the concession stands will be in front of it," Stitt said, adding that restrooms also will be built in front of that wall.

The new stadium will have upgraded concessions and more restrooms, as well as three new tunnels to make access easier.

Eighty-two truckloads of steel and 175 truckloads of aluminum are expected for the bleachers and press box over several months, Stitt said. Another 15 truckloads of seats -- in Cardinal red, of course -- will be among the last items installed.

There will be real seats rather than benches in the stadium, with armrests for those along the sidelines.

In the middle of summer, Stanford landscapers will begin working on the field. Although early reports said it would be a synthetic field, Schinski said Wednesday that the university might go with grass after all. That decision is expected in the next several weeks.

He said games can be moved to other venues if problems with construction occur, but both Schinski and Stitt expect the stadium to be ready for Sept. 9.

Then the school that narrowly missed a bowl game this year will have a new bowl of its own, even if it's just an earthen one.